Dear Albert
by Feathercroft
Summary: COMPLETE! Nell Lovett is no stranger to murder. Takes place in the years before Sweeney Todd. R&R.
1. Chapter 1

Dear Albert: (Oneshot) Nellie Lovett is no stranger to murder. Takes place before Sweeney Todd. R&R.

Nell Lovett sat in her dingy parlor sipping a cup of tea as she watched the fire as it began to consume the new log she had just added to the grate. The house was perfectly quiet except for the occasional hiss and pop of the slightly damp wood. There was no wheezing or coughing from down the hall, there were no bells ringing to beckon her, only silence. She sighed heavily, pulling herself out of her chair and ghosting down the hall to the bedroom she had shared with her husband.

She would call the undertaker in the morning, she thought.

The bedside table was still cluttered with empty teacups and soiled handkerchiefs, as well as a little mull of spearmint snuff. Her eyes strayed to the bed, where Albert was just as she left him. The sheets around him were mussed from his grabbing hands, some of them even spilt to the floor. But now he was still.

As if he was only asleep, she carefully smoothed the sheets around him and replaced the fallen covers. She tried moving his arms to a more peaceful position, but his body had already started to stiffen. He would have to stay the way he was, except for one thing.

Nell looked at her husband's unmoving body, not really sure whether she wanted to remove the pillow she'd pressed to his face or not.

The man had never been kind, though she tried her best. She cooked (even if she was not very good at it), cleaned, and performed her wifely duties without complaint (though, under his massive weight, it might have been difficult to do), but never earned a kind word. When gout took his leg, she waited on him. And yet, he was ever ungrateful. But she was a wife, and would do what she needed for her husband.

"Someday, Nellie. Someday you'll just as well kill me!" he said, his words punctuated with coughs.

Someday, he said. Someday came sooner than he expected. She had pressed the pillow over his face while he was sleeping. He struggled, as she excepted, but soon his body twitched and lay still. He had no strength to fight, and she felt no remorse. She felt nothing at all.

Nell lifted the pillow gently. Albert's face was contorted into a silent scream, his eyes still open and beginning to whiten.

"My dear Albert." she said, closing his eyelids with two fingers. She propped his stiff body up with the pillow that had been the instrument of his death. She straightened the bedside table and returned to the parlor, dropping herself into her chair to doze.

She would call the undertaker in the morning to come for her Dear Albert.


	2. Chapter 2

Hi again, everyone. Thanks for the reviews to the first chapter! I've decided to keep going with this one for a few more chapters. They're likely to be short, but they'll be updated regularly for the next week or so. Anticipate 2-3 more chapters. Thanks to everyone who has and continues to R&R. 3

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_Knock, knock, knock._

Nell Lovett stood at the door in the frosty night air, hugging herself inside layers of aging furs to keep warm. The note she kept tucked in her pocket had begged her to come quickly, though she didn't know what for. The door swung open and immediately she was wrapped in two fragile arms.

"Nell, I'm sorry for calling you out so late. I just don't know who else to turn to." The woman dissolved into sobs. Nell wrapped her arms around the poor woman, trying to sooth her.

"Hush, Lucy. Don't fret about the time. Let's go inside or we'll catch our deaths." she said, nudging her old friend through the open doorway.

"Better death than this shame. Oh, Nell, what am I going to do!" Lucy cried, burying her face in her hands.

"Let's go inside, Lucy. No need to make a scene out in the open for everyone to hear."

With that, she led the crying woman into the house and shut the door.

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The pair sat quietly in the parlor. Nell had wrapped her friend in a quilt to keep out the cold, as she was wearing little more than a thin nightdress, and settled her into a chair. She herself had cast off her furs and drawn a chair close to the fire. Lucy's infant daughter, Johanna, was asleep in a basket by the iron bellied stove.

"Benjamin has been arrested." Lucy said quietly, staring down into her teacup.

"Whatever for?" Nell asked, shocked.

"Burglary. Lord Turpin says he stole something very valuable to him. And no one would question a man so respected, especially now that he's a court judge. They took him right out of the marketplace for everyone to see. I have never been so shamed." She put a hand to her forehead and choked on a sob.

"His trial is in the morning and we've no money for a lawyer. I fear the worst for him, Nellie."

"Surely they won't condemn a man without just cause?"

"Are you suggesting he's guilty?" Lucy demanded a little too loudly, causing the infant to stir and cry. Lucy rose from her chair and picked the child up to rock.

"No, no! Of course not, Lucy." Nell said, rising from her chair. "He'd never steal, least of all from a judge. They can't punish an innocent man."

Lucy shook her head as if she disagreed and fought back another wave of tears. Nell crossed the room and enveloped Lucy in her arms, Johanna between them. Lucy nestled her head in her neck, her unruly golden hair pressed up into her nose so that Nell could smell the soft scent of rose soap.

"It will be all right," she said, even though she knew it was wrong.

"Oh Nell, stay with us. At least until Benjamin is freed. I can't bear to be alone with only Johanna. I need help." She looked at her then, tears marking tracks down her face, and Nell couldn't refuse her.

"I'll stay here, at least until this matter is all sorted out."


	3. Chapter 3

Hello again, everyone. Another chapter for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.

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Nell never liked the wallpaper in Lucy's parlor. It was garish, with vertical green and yellow stripes that clashed with the furniture. Lucy didn't seem to, or pretended not to, notice the wrinkled noses of the women who visited her at home. She, herself, would have preferred something lighter. Pink, maybe, and feminine, as a ladies parlor should be. Albert had never bothered remodeling their run down home, since it was just a collection of three rooms, although she would have loved to entertain her lady friends in a lovely pink parlor.

The only feminine touches in Lucy's home were flowers. Every day for three weeks now, bouquets of flowers had been sent to the house addressed to Lucy. Any other woman would be flattered and send 'thank you' notes, but not Lucy. She sat in her tasteless parlor sipping weak tea with tears spilling in eternal rivers down her face. Nell was sick of looking at it, day after day.

Lucy didn't speak anymore. Not to Nell, at least. Sometimes she would mumble something to the baby when she cried, but once she had calmed and went back to sleep Lucy would return to her wordless existence.

"Lovely day today, Luce. Why don't we go take a walk?" Nell asked, trying to break her out of silence. When Lucy didn't reply, she crossed the room to Johanna's pen where sat playing with her doll and scooped her up into her arms.

"I'm sure Johanna wouldn't mind the open air." She clucked the child under the chin. "Would you? Wouldn't you like to go on a little walk with mama?"

Nell smiled at Lucy, bouncing the baby on her hip, trying to coax any emotion other than sorrow from her, but she just raised her wet eyes and shook her head.

"I'm not going out there," she whispered. "Not while that horrible, evil man is still alive to condemn innocent husbands."

Nell sighed, frustrated, and put the baby back in her pen.

"Lucy, you can't hide in here forever. We're going outside today. I'll fetch your bonnet and shawl and we _will_ go out. Now pin up your hair, you look a mess."

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Again, thanks for reading. Remember to R&R! :)


	4. Chapter 4

Hey everyone, thanks for joining me again! A new chapter for your reading pleasure, this time set in Turpin's perspective. R&R, please and thank you!

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The Judge sat browsing one of the books in his personal library while his good friend Beadle Bamford enjoyed a brandy by the fire. There was a picture here, one he looked at so often the page had begun to lose its grip on the spine; a picture that looked like _her_. He came upon it and his breath caught in his chest, as it always did when he glimpsed her. The water colored picture looked delicate on the page, even though it depicted the carnal and perverse desires of the flesh.

He would stare at the picture for hours in the evening, fantasizing that he was the man represented; that he was the one touching and tasting every inch of skin on her body. He imagined the sounds she would make, the short gasps and moans of pleasure or pain, both of them excited him. The thought of dominating her, this beautiful woman who haunted his mind night and day, set his body aflame with desire.

She would be his. He would make quite certain of that.

"Invite Lucy to the ball tomorrow night." he said, shutting the book carefully.

The Beadle looked up from the fire where his gaze had been resting, his face flushed from his drink.

"The masquerade, sir?"

"Indeed." he replied. "Send for her tomorrow evening. Better yet, go to retrieve her and bring her to me." The judge smiled at the thought of seeing Lucy surprised and a little scared at being called on by such a powerful man at so late an hour.

"Tell her I am remorseful for her unfortunate situation and would like to make amends, if she will let me." A thought sprang to his mind that stretched his mouth into a smug grin. "Tell her I will arrange for her husband's safe return, if she will only do me this one favor."

He ran his open palm over the leather cover of the book still on his lap and smiled at his long time friend. The toadish little man smiled with his crooked teeth and laughed deep in his chest.

Yes, the judge would have her, one way or another.

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R&R.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Welcome back again, everyone. Sorry this chapter took so long; it was taxing to write. I'm sure I'm not the only one who uses a 'method' approach when they write, putting yourself in the character's shoes and reacting the way you believe they would, which can be very difficult. Anyway, enjoy. R&R.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sweeney Todd and claim nothing but happiness from these pieces.

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The scandal was all over town by morning. Everyone in attendance had seen her enter the ballroom, a little tipsy and certainly not dressed for the occasion. They saw the wanton way she fell into the Judge's arms and begged him to be with her privately. Of course, they all saw how calm and collected he was, settling her down on a couch while the others just laughed at her. They saw his take-charge action as he took her away into another room to settle the situation while the party went on. But nobody knew what really happened in that room, though some of the ladies had attempted to listen discreetly by the door before being spirited away by their husbands.

This much was true, Lucy Barker's name had been truly and utterly disgraced. While half of London society believed she was a shameless hussy, the rest of them believed she had simply gone insane.

When she returned to her home in the early hours of the morning she locked herself into her bedroom and stripped naked, washing all the parts of her that wicked man had touched with the cold water left in her washbasin. All the while, she cried long and hard for her husband and her reputation. If he ever returned from his dreadful imprisonment, he would find her a broken woman. Someone no long admissible into proper society.

Gasps and sobs wracked her frail body as she discovered the bite marks and bruises Turpin had put on her. Some of them, she knew, would never heal properly. But she scrubbed at them fiercely, as if she could erase them from her skin and prevent her dearest husband from ever having to see the scars they would leave. Never had she craved his gentle touch more than in this moment. She wanted to fall into his arms and cry while he petted her hair, whispering soft words of love to her.

Her mind was clouded with grief. She clamped her hands around her stomach and rocked back and forth, crying out as loudly as her choked throat allowed. She knew there would be hand-shaped bruises on it by morning. Thinking of how he had grabbed at her, his hands forcefully moving over her body, made her stomach turn. She heaved dryly and gagged, bile pushing up into her throat.

"Lucy?" Came a soft voice from the hallway.

"Go away!" she yelled, her voice breaking on tears. The doorknob rattled as Nell tried to enter.

"What's the matter, are you sick? Do you need anything? Open the door."

"I said, go _away_! Just leave me alone!" she screamed. Down the hall, Johanna began to cry. Lucy listened as Nell's footsteps disappeared into the nursery to sooth the baby.

It was then that Lucy realized that not only her life had been destroyed. Her infant daughter, who would already grow up without her father to love her, had lost all hopes for her future. And it was all because Lucy was stupid enough to believe the judge was remorseful. That man could never feel remorse. He could never feel sympathy or love.

Then suddenly, she realized, neither could she. She could feel nothing. She folded in on herself, wrapping her arms around her naked knees and lying down at the foot of the bed she had shared with her absent husband. She knew then that she would never be the same; something within her was broken beyond repair, and she wanted nothing more than to stop existing.

Later that night, once Johanna had stopped fussing and Nell had fallen asleep, Lucy slipped into the kitchen and took a small dark glass bottle from a high cabinet. A little bottle they used to poison food and kill rats. A little bottle she'd use to help her along.

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R&R, please and thank you. 3


	6. Chapter 6

Welcome back, sorry it's taken so long to update. Been busy.

Enjoy! R&R, please and thank you. :)

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Life as a widow was quite agreeable to Nell Lovett. There were so many freedoms she hadn't been allowed as a married woman that were now available to her. She had no one to answer to but herself and that suited her just fine.

It had been ten years since Nell took charge of the Barker home. She persuaded Lucy to sign over the deed to her (which was not a hard task, as Lucy wasn't quite herself anymore), and turned it into a meat pie shop. Nell had never really been a very good cook, a point which her late husband has often pointed out to her, but she got by on what little money she made.

She had pawned many of the Barker's valuable family items, considering the house and all the items therein legally belonged to her. She did, however, save some things. A dining set of fine bone china painted with delicate blue flowers, two large oriental rugs, a fifteen piece silver tea set, and a case of chased silver razors in a velvet lined case. All these things she proudly displayed in her new home, welcoming the praise she received from the ladies who came to visit her.

"What a lovely dinette! Such intricate patterns for you china!" they would say. Or:

"How elegant! Your tea set is simply beautiful, I must have one!"

But no one understood the value of the razors. Although they were beautiful, the women she entertained tended to see it as a bit macabre, so Nell hid them away under a floorboard and only took them out to admire on very special occasions.

No guilt plagued Nell Lovett. She had everything she had ever wanted; a home to call her own, a (sometimes) successful business, enough money to preserve her into her later years and, because of the judge, a few higher end social connections. The only thing that was missing was someone to share it all with. Lucy had been released from Bedlam, but her mind was not all there. She took to the streets as a beggar and prostitute and could hardly remember her own name, let alone the life she once led. After a month, Nell assumed she was dead. Even if she wasn't, it was an easier thing to think rather than the truth. She thought she saw her on occasion, but it was hard to tell as most beggars tended to look the same in London. Dirty and rotting, they were almost more animal than human.

So Nell moved on, although part of her still longed for a companion. She remembered how tender Lucy's husband had always been with her, how she had always wished she could have the same kind of sweet love, but Albert was callous and had no romantic instinct whatsoever. The pangs of jealousy she felt when her dearest friend had written about her pregnancy and the birth of her lovely little daughter made Nell bitter and resentful. Nell had lost two children in her married life, one to miscarriage and another stillborn, and Albert remained indifferent.

One day she came upon a framed portrait of the little family and it made her yearn for a loving partner of her own. Maybe someday, she thought, she might have a chance at finding her own love. A marriage she was able to choose for herself with a gentle man who would maybe not mind retiring to the country in their later years. Or perhaps the shore, as Nell was partial to neither. Should she ever find such a man, she thought, she would never let him go.

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R&R, thanks!


	7. Chapter 7

Hey everybody! This is the last chapter for this fic, I hope you enjoyed it. :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

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"Damn, damn."

Nell ran a hand through her wild hair as she looked over the accounts. In the past three months her meat pie shop had gone from somewhat successful to completely empty and she had consequently acquired a large amount of debt. What little she had saved for her future by the sea had been swept away by the debt collector who had only just left.

"I'm sure you can earn enough to cover your debt somehow," he said with a licentious wink that made her skin crawl. He gathered the marks together in his attaché case and stepped toward the door, lingering a moment on the threshold to add: "If I knew you was selling yourself, I'd be first in line."

"Bloody bastard," she said under her breath. She slammed the account book shut and shoved it across the table where it teetered for a moment before slipping onto the floor.

"Damn," she said again, rising out of the chair to retrieve it.

She picked it up off the filthy floor to put it away in the roll top desk where she kept all her important papers and hid the key before returning to the futile task of making meat pies. No one had stopped by in days beside a fellow off the Bristol asking for directions. Though she'd done her best to persuade him to buy a meat pie and a pint for his surely aching belly, he refused her quite persistently. Today, she decided, if she had a customer she would not take no for an answer - even if it meant throwing the pies into their protesting mouths.

She didn't have to wait long, though, because a customer in a barber's coat came in not half an hour later. He took a look around and nearly turned to leave but Mrs. Lovett was fast and had him by the arm in a second.

"What's your rush, sir?" she asked, grasping his sleeve and hauling him to a table. "Half a minute, can'tcher?"

He sat dutifully, a little stunned it seemed, as she foolishly prattled on about her lack of customers. She hoped in his daze he wouldn't noticed the dirty floors and scattering roaches, so she continued to speak in a rush. Before he had time to think she'd placed a mostly fresh meat pie before him and offered a pint of ale to wash it down with. The poor fellow's hair was a little wild and he carried the salty smell of the sea about him, but he soldiered through a bite and she did her best to ignore the labored chewing.

"My neighbor Mrs. Mooney, she has a pie shop too see, but meat being expensive as it is nowadays I have no idea how a little old woman like that keeps herself afloat." The man opened his mouth to say something, but she ignored it. "After all, she's nearly seventy and well into senility. Does her business rightly but I noticed something strange, you see, all her neighbor's cats have disappeared."

"Wouldn't do in my shop," she said as she wiped her hands on the front of her dress and propped her elbows on the counter. "Times is hard, sir, but not that hard."

The man took a generous swallow of ale. Poor dear, he looked more ragged than anyone she'd seen in years and her lousy meat pie hadn't helped, but in his face was something familiar she couldn't quite place. His eyes were hard though, and she felt guilty for feeling so sorry for herself earlier. This wretch must have been through something to earn that stony glare.

"Trust me dearie, it's gonna take a lot more than ale to wash that taste out. C'mon, we'll get you a nice tumbler of gin, eh?" The man didn't say anything as she led him to the parlor and produced a bottle and filled a glass with the clear liquid.

"Isn't this homey, now? The cheery wallpaper was a real bargain, too. It was only partly singed when the chapel burned down." Nell handed him the tumbler and watched as he took a little sip. It was obvious it'd been a while since he'd had any real spirits as he flinched when he swallowed. As for herself, she took a secret swig from the vessel before returning it to its hiding place.

"You sit down," she said, motioning to the couch. "Warm your bones."

The man sat and looked around the parlor, seeming to see something she didn't. She stared at his face, wanting to place it in her memory. He was so familiar. She was sure she'd have remembered hair like his, dark with a shock of white streaking up from his furrowed brow. His mouth was set in a firm line and she knew he'd be rather handsome if he'd allow himself to smile. She could imagine it, warm and full of love.

"You've a room over the shop here?" he said finally, his voice low and gravelly. She nodded in response. "Times is so hard, why don't you rent it out?"

"What, up there? No, I won't go near it," she cast her eyes toward the stairs and back. "People think it's haunted."

"Haunted?" he asked. Nell nodded, sinking into a chair by the fire. A picture was forming in her mind of a man she knew long ago, but it couldn't be him, not with those eyes.

"And who's to say they're wrong?" She leaned forward a bit and put her elbows to her knees. "You see, years ago, something happened up there - something not very nice."

"There was a barber and his wife, you see. He was a proper artist with a knife, beautiful really, but he was transported to Australia some years ago. Barker his name was," she paused and looked him in the face. "Benjamin Barker."

"What was his crime?" the man asked bitterly.

"Foolishness," she replied. "He had this wife, you see, pretty little thing. A friend of mine, silly little nit. There was this judge you see, he was in love with her. Every day after her husband was arrested he sent flowers, drove me mad with dying flower petals he did, but she never gave him the time of day. She just stayed inside and sobbed for days and days."

"One night, the Beadle comes knocking on the door for her all gentlemanly and tells her the judge is full of contrition and blames himself for her woebegone state, so will she please come to his house so he can make things right? And she goes." Nell shook her tangled hair. "I told her don't go, but she wouldn't listen to me."

"Of course, when she goes there, poor thing, they're having this ball all in masks. There's no one she knows there, so she wanders, tormented, and drinks more than she ought. All the while she thinks the judge isn't there at all. He was there, all right, only not so contrite as he'd said." She watched as the man's face grew tight and angry. His hands curled into fists by his side. "It was all a trick and she wasn't no match for such craft, you see, simple little thing that she was. Everyone thought it so droll they stood about and laughed. Poor soul, she was ruined after that night. Poor thing."

"No!" he yelled. The man had come out of his chair abruptly and was shaking with rage. "Would no one have mercy on her?"

"So, it is you," Nell said finally, her vague inklings coming together to form a whole picture of who the man before her used to be. "Benjamin Barker."

"Where is Lucy?" he asked brokenly. "Where is my wife?"

"She poisoned herself. Arsenic, from the apothecary around the corner." Nell shook her head sadly, remembering how she found Lucy lying face down in a puddle of vomit, the bedclothes torn to shreds around her broken body. "I tried to stop her, but she wouldn't listen to me."

For a long moment he didn't move, only stared at a spot on the wall behind her.

"And he's got your daughter." She said, almost as an afterthought. She'd thought little of Johanna in the past fifteen years.

"He? Judge Turpin?" he spat.

"Adopted her," she said softly. "Like his own."

"Fifteen years," he began cruelly, taking heavy steps toward the lace-draped window that faced the street. "I've sweated in a living hell on a false charge. Fifteen years dreaming I might come home to a wife and child."

"Well, I can't say the years have been particularly kind to you, Mr. Barker-"

"No," he said firmly, ending her train of thought. "Not Barker. That man is dead. It's Todd now, Sweeney Todd, and he will have his revenge."

They stood for a moment facing each other, neither saying a word. Nell was frightened of this new personality, but she also saw an opportunity. She had debt and a room to let, he had skill and a reason to stay, so why not? If she could persuade him to stay in his old loft and bring in customers, maybe she'd sell more pies. Eventually she'd be able to buy some real meat and pay off her debts.

"Well, Mister T," she said, coming out of her chair. "Seems you'll need a place to stay, aye? C'mon with me, I'll set you up right."

They took the side stairs into the upper room. It had been a while since Nell had dusted up there, about ten years in fact, and it had gotten quite filthy since then. The green and yellow wallpaper that had once paneled the downstairs parlor had begun to peel off the wall in strips, which Nell quite enjoyed the sight of. She hated that paper, after all. Todd lingered on the threshold. Nell imagined he was seeing the room as it used to be, a place where he had worked happily while his wife and infant daughter played in the corner.

"Come in," she said at last, her hands planted on her hips. "Nothing to be afraid of, love."

He took a step inside and looked about as she looked for a specific floorboard. It'd been years since she'd taken her treasures out to admire. The temptation to sell them when times were bad had become too strong, so she hid them away from herself. Todd noticed the brass cradle against the back wall as she found the right board and she noticed his face crumpled a bit to look at it. She lifted the velvet box from the floor and removed the lid. Inside, six gleaming razors winked in the dim light.

"When they came for the girl, I hid them," she said as he approached. "Could've sold them, but I didn't."

Todd lifted one out of the box and flicked it open, running his thumb over the sharpened edge with reverence. Mrs. Lovett hovered over his shoulder as he did, breathing in the scent of him and admiring the way he handled the blade.

"Those handles is chased silver, ain't they?"

"Silver," he said softly, a cold smile playing on his lips. "Yes."

"Don't they shine beautiful?" Longing tinged her voice, but Todd hardly noticed. He clutched razors in both hands and admired the way they caught the light. She smiled warmly at him, deciding he was handsome despite the hardness. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to feel what he was feeling at that moment, and she would have if he hadn't settled his eyes coldly on her.

"Leave me," He said firmly. Nell did as she was told, feeling the weight of his stare well after she was out of his sight.

Little did she know, though, that she had just set into motion a chain of events that would change the course of her life.

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R&R!


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